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Chinese Telecom Provider Says Goodbye to Cisco Gear

Chinese telecom provider Unicom has reportedly replaced its Cisco network equipment, citing security concerns. In a retaliatory move, the Chinese company decided to replace “China169,” Cisco’s backbone network router of Wuxi node, an infrastructure that is responsible with routing significant amounts of Internet and telecom data.

The decision was made as China Unicom fears the Cisco product could come with backdoor software that would allow a remote entity to read and modify traffic that is being routed through the device.

Unsurprisingly, the call came after a US congressional report advised American companies to avoid using networking gear from Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE on similar concerns: espionage via voluntarily implemented backdoors.

This move may have serious consequences for Cisco, a highly-popular brand of enterprise-level networking equipment in China, as it has secured more than 70 percent of China Telecom’s 163 backbone network.